Welcome back! Today we begin an interesting adventure into the world of Python’s object-oriented programming (OOP). We will examine the ideas of ‘classes’ and ‘objects,’ which are central to OOP. A **‘class’ **in Python is a blueprint or prototype that describes a collection of properties and methods that define any **object **of the class. Consider it a rough drawing of a house. It covers all of the information regarding the floors, doors, windows, and so on. We construct dwellings based on these descriptions. **House **is an object in this context. Here’s a simple Python class example:
class MyClass:
variable = "Look, I'm a variable in a class."
def my_function(self):
print("Hello from inside the class!")
In this example, **MyClass** is the class we defined, which contains a variable **variable** and a function **my_function**. An ‘object’, on the other hand, is an instance of a class. Just like a house built from a blueprint. Here’s how we create an object of **MyClass**:
my_object = MyClass()
Now, **my_object** has all the attributes and methods defined in **MyClass**. You can access them as follows:
print(my_object. variable) # Outputs: "Look, I'm a variable in a class."
my_object. my_function() # Outputs: "Hello from inside the class!"
Exercise
Ready to build some Python objects of your own? Great! Here’s your task:- Define a class **Car** with attributes **color** and **brand**, and a method **honk** that prints “Beep beep!”.
- Create an object
my_carfrom the**Car** class, set its color to “red” and brand to “**Toyota**”. - Print the attributes of
**my_car**and call its**honk**method.
Conclusion
Congratulations, you’ve just taken a giant step forward in your Python adventure by learning about classes and objects! Understanding OOP is essential because it enables us to develop more structured and reusable code. It may appear difficult at first, but with practice, you will begin to appreciate its beauty. As usual, keep coding, exploring, and having fun with Python!